With his lanky frame, unusual haircut, and facial scruff, Max (Michael Mason) is immediately recognizable as a New York hipster. He sits on a tattered rug playing a videogame until he decides to switch to porn and stuff his hand down his pants. He's interrupted by his roommate, Alan (Jared Culverhouse), who's the less cool, overweight, and responsible one. Max is content to while away his days high on cocaine, so his pal cleans up after him. Alan still keeps teddy bears around as keepsakes, which Max constantly chides him about. By now it's obvious what's going on here: Both are trapped in some post-college holding pattern until something clicks and they become men. That harmony of dysfunction changes when another old friend, Woody (Cole Wimpee), arrives. It turns out he's AWOL from the Iraq war and is running from a group called the Penetrators, who locked him up in a black room and anally raped him until he escaped. Now he seems a little crazy — and lethal.
Although British playwright Anthony Nielson wrote his play in 1993 as a response to the 1991 Gulf War, Bekah Brunstetter (To Nineveh) has deftly adapted the piece with contemporary American references and dialogue. We're easily led to believe we're dealing with the current Iraq war and that Woody is suffering from post-traumatic stress after intense battle. However, the play holds little political resonance and unfolds as a dirty tale of failed male friendship.
Under Jeremy Torres' direction, Mason is charming as Max; his performance is the glue that holds the production together. Woody's meant to be a beefier bully type, but Wimpee is too endearing and cherubic to pull off his menacing strangeness effectively. By the end, we're left contemplating a lot of violent scenes and graphic language, wondering if these boys will ever grow up.
Produced by Working Man's Clothes Productions at the American Place Theatre, 520 Eighth Ave., NYC. June 2-23. Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.